Flash 8: Projects for Learning Animation and Interactivity

This book teaches Flash design rather than simply Flash itself. With a standalone series of walkthroughs and tutorials for Flash beginners coming from a graphics field, Flash is covered in the context of real-world projects. Rather than learn a Flash tool for the sake of it, you learn which areas of Flash are important, and which are less used, simply by seeing how typical content is actually created. And rather than a text-heavy approach, this graphically rich book leads you through hands-on examples by illustration.

Macromedia Flash is fast becoming the Web's most widely used platform for creating rich media with animation and motion graphics, but mastering Flash isn't easy. Most entry-level books teach through simple examples that concentrate on either animation or scripting, but rarely both together. To get the most from Flash 8, you not only need to be proficient in programming/interface design, you need the creativity for story telling and the artistic insights to design fluid animation.

Flash 8: Projects for Learning Animation and Interactivity teaches Flash design rather than simply Flash itself. With a standalone series of walkthroughs and tutorials for Flash beginners coming from a graphics field, this book teaches Flash in the context of real-world projects. Rather than learn a Flash tool for the sake of it, you learn which areas of Flash are important, and which are less used, simply by seeing how typical content is actually created. And rather than a text-heavy approach, this graphically rich book leads you through hands-on examples by illustration.

Each project in the book starts with goals and broad sketches before moving to design and scripting. This helps you understand design intent-the why of the process-rather than just learning the interfaces and the how of it all. Along the way, you'll create Flash content that includes traditional animation techniques (as seen in full-length animated features), and ActionScript-based interactive animation, such as custom web site interface designs. You also learn how to combine both traditional animation techniques and ActionScript to create feature-rich Flash assets from the ground up.

Co-authored by educational developers with years of experience creating compelling content, interfaces, and applications, Flash 8: Projects for Learning Animation and Interactivity offers a content-driven approach that is also inspiration-driven. You learn because you're accomplishing something tangible, not because you think you need to know how a tool works.

If you want to understand how various features of Flash come together to create a final end design, this book provides you with both the insight and the know-how.

 

 

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . ix
1. Getting Started, Right Out of the Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Drawing Your First Box 1
Coloring Fills and Strokes 7
Merging and Stacking Shapes 16
Creating Reusable Graphics 22
2. Creating Quickly: Customizing Your Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 27
Designing Your Own Panel Layout 27
Customizing Movie Properties 32
Aligning Objects on the Stage 33
Behind Every Good Symbol Is a Good Editor 37
Automate Your Workflow 39
3. Your First Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . 45
Layers and the Timeline 46
Keyframes and Tweening 50
Preparing Text for Animation 52
Staggering Animation 57
Alpha Effect 58
Motion Effects 58
Your First Script 63
Publishing Your Movie 65
4. Buttons and Interactivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Buttons as Symbols 69
Scripting Your Button 73
Components and Behaviors 79
Navigation 83
More Fun with Buttons 90
vi Contents
5. Working with Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . 95
Importing Pixels 95
Working with Pixels 101
Importing Vectors 106
Using Scenes 109
Working with the Library 110
6. Movie Clips and Interactivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Drawing a Cartoon Character 115
Controlling the Character with ActionScript 128
More Movie Clip Control 131
7. More Animation Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Morphing with Shape Tweens 135
Frame-by-Frame Animation 139
Using Masks 143
Timeline Versus ActionScript Animation 155
8. Using Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Importing Sounds 161
Controlling External Sounds 169
Scripting Your Own Sound Control 172
9. Using Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Importing Video 181
Controlling External Videos 184
Scripting Your Own Video Control 190
10. Compositing and Bitmap Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Runtime Bitmap Caching 197
Bitmap Filter Effects 199
Blend Modes 210
11. Working with Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Text Types 217
Using Fonts 221
Loading and Styling Text 223
FlashType 230
12. Loading Assets on the Fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Using ActionScript to Modularize Content 235
Preloading 240
13. e-Learning with Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Creating a Quiz: Getting Started with Templates 249
Sending Results with a Form 254
Saving and Retrieving Local Data 260
14. Flash for CD-ROM and Handhelds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Flash on CD-ROM 271
Flash on the Run 277
vii Contents
15. Think Outside the Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Exporting to Video 291
The Drawing API 299
Extending Flash 303
The Rest Is Up to You 311
A. Tips and Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . 335
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